The world witnessed the historic landing of NASA’s Perseverance Rover, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world.
Among the scientists behind the historic mission, Indian-American Dr Swati Mohan spearheaded the development of attitude control and the landing system for the rover.
Dr Mohan emigrated to the US from India when she was only a year old. Raised in Northern Virginia and Washington DC metro area, she completed her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and her M.S. and Ph.D from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautics/Astronautics.
At the age of 9, after having watched ‘Star Trek’ for the first time, she was quite astounded by the beautiful depictions of the new regions of the universe that they were exploring, reported ANI. She had immediately realised that she wanted to do that and “find new and beautiful places in the universe”.
Although Swati Mohan had first wanted to become a paediatrician, it was her first physics class and her teacher that made her consider engineering as a means to pursue her interest in space exploration.
Over the course of her career with NASA, Ms. Mohan has worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn and GRAIL — a pair of formation flown spacecraft to the Moon, and has been a mainstay with the Mars 2020 mission since its beginning in 2013.